[svsantosh]

Sigh! Just when Skoda name begins to shine under the light of the newer and better 2014 models - and the ever-pursuing TBhp eyes on Skoda-India on-off relation - now this!

Very eager to see this to closure. Nothing short of a new car is acceptable (actually full cash back is ideal, who in their right minds would drive the same car/model again). Obvious question is IF this can happen without a accident, will it fail to open in a accident!

[VeluM]

Really unfortunate for the poor owner, but I can understand that it would take time to analyse what caused the airbags to deploy. Communication there is the key, and also ensuring that the owner is not caused the inconvenience of not having a vehicle to use in the mean time.

IMHO the sensors thought there was a side-impact, causing the airbags to deploy. I assume this because the sensors would cause all of the airbags on that specific side to deploy, which shouldn't happen if it were a fault with a particular airbag. Or could the force of one side-airbag deploying be enough for the sensor to trigger the rest?

Anyway, I don't see that the owner has been given a loaner while his car is being checked. Hope the dealership has, and hope they figure out the root cause which is again hopefully not generic.

[luvtandon]

Hope nobody was hurt in the incident.


It’s not that shocking that a curtain airbag opens by itself in a few weeks old car which costed the owner a neat INR 22 lakh as that can happen in any car and can be passed off as a one off instance (pun intended).

What is really shocking in this case is that the car is with the dealer for more than 3 weeks and they still do not have a clue about what the hell happened.

We know that the exact cause has to be found to ensure that it does not happen again but 3 weeks without a clue seems to be a criminal waste of time.

[jonathanarmy]

Originally Posted by Captain Slow

GTO,
Do you think the car met with an small accident at the dealers before delivery? Dealer did a quick fix and tried to dispose of the car?

That was one of the FIRST thoughts that came to my mind, as well... I'm pretty sure this is the case, given the ethics our dealers have.

[BlackPearl]

Really unfortunate incident and Skoda should come uo with an explanation real fast. I hope this incident does not dissuade future buyers from opting out of higher variants of vehicles with airbags. About a decade back I had seen Sales Advisers telling potential customers to stay away from Airbags and ABS as they were not proven in India. I hope such advisers don't get further fuel out of this incident.

[Rehaan]

This brings to mind an incident i heard of a few months back:

A person claimed that the airbags of their VAG car deployed on hard/panic braking (when someone ran across ahead of their car) - but said they didn't even come close to the person.

Sounded like an airbag malfunction right? Maybe the sensors were confused into thinking the hard braking was an impact? Maybe they hit a bump in the road at exactly the same time as hitting the brakes? There could be a few possible explanations i guess...

Well no. Upon seeing the car in question - it was very clear that the car had in fact made momentary contact with something/someone - and hence the airbags deployed, correctly so.

Originally Posted by UB_007

Could be that the door pressure sensors are the culprit. Was this portion of door worked on by A.S.S before delivery?

What keeps running through my mind is the car driving through a residential neighborhood, and a flying rubber cricket ball / football hitting the B-pillar or door. Something like this wouldn't necessarily leave a noticeable impact either - but it could trigger the airbag. The sound of the impact + the airbags deploying a few milliseconds later would be indistinguishable from each other.


To be honest, I'm not convinced on this one being "Skoda's fault". (I say; innocent until proven guilty - beyond a reasonable doubt.)

cya
R

[Lobogris]

Airbag malfunction (or suspected malfunction) is quite common. If we do some research, we will find numerous instances listed on the web from across the world. It isn't limited to any particular manufacturer.

Here are some examples from the US:

Honda-

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/au...bags.html?_r=0

Here a lot of people complain about General Motors airbag issues:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/autom...m_airbags.html

Finally, this website from a law firms details some of the reasons that can lead to airbag failure:

http://www.carsafetylawyer.com/pract...at-went-wrong/

[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

What keeps running through my mind is the car driving through a residential neighborhood, and a flying rubber cricket ball / football hitting the B-pillar or door. Something like this wouldn't necessarily leave a noticeable impact either - but it could trigger the airbag. The sound of the impact + the airbags deploying a few milliseconds later would be indistinguishable from each other.


To be honest, I'm not convinced on this one being "Skoda's fault". (I say; innocent until proven guilty - beyond a reasonable doubt.)

cya
R

Rehaan, am not contesting the logic of what you say but rather the logistics. Am sure there are more non-Skoda cars on road that carries 6 air bags than otherwise, my Verna SX(O) being one.

While it's true that I'm scared to death to mod my car by damping it with Dynamat or something similar, I'm pretty sure the B pillar of my carv have seen their share of impact, and the frontals have seen worse considering i drive in inconsiderate city traffic. In the 30k+ KM I've driven in a little more than a year, if have kicked hell if my side or curtain air bags came out for anything less than a real impact.

Considering i have not seen any such instances with any car and this being the first, I'd like to know what triggers a deployment -am sure it can't be one sensor or area that does it, layman's perspective.

[arunphilip]

From what I know, the airbag sensors are placed within a part of the body structure, so casual impacts like kicks, balls hitting are not intended to trigger the airbag deployment. Instead, some deformation should occur to trigger it.

Looking at an workshop manual for an older Octavia, notice the items marked 7 (acceleration sensor for side impact) and 11 (pressure sensor for side impact):

The acceleration sensor (#7) is placed at the bottom of the C pillar:

The pressure sensor (#11) is placed within the door:

From the original post, one can see the doors appear proper (except for the post-deployment deformation) Attachment 1304604 and the C pillar also appears fine Attachment 1304607. It is likely that no mechanical factor triggered airbag deployment.

Note: images sourced from www.workshop-manuals.com and are copyright of the respective owners

[SnS_12]

Well, luckily Mr. Shaikh did not have an accident due to the sudden deployment of the curtain airbag.

If that was the case then it would have been really difficult to prove that the airbag got deployed prior to the accident and not vice a versa. Also, Skoda would have easily been able to wash their hands away from the incident.

Further, if the airbag can do that to a door frame, just imagine what if a kid happened to be playing around in the car near the passenger seat when the airbag deployed. Scary!!

[fine69]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

What keeps running through my mind is the car driving through a residential neighborhood, and a flying rubber cricket ball / football hitting the B-pillar or door. Something like this wouldn't necessarily leave a noticeable impact either - but it could trigger the airbag. The sound of the impact + the airbags deploying a few milliseconds later would be indistinguishable from each other.

This is not how airbags would deploy unless there's a sensor malfunction otherwise you can't imagine the number of airbags going off in a typical Indian neighbourhood, thanks to gully cricket/football and what not.

Originally Posted by Rehaan

To be honest, I'm not convinced on this one being "Skoda's fault". (I say; innocent until proven guilty - beyond a reasonable doubt.)

Whenever there's a life at stake it should be the other way round, but that maybe just my opinion.

[invidious]

I remember seeing a documentary a decade ago of how airbags in Nissan cars - I think the model was Altima - would deploy and instead of saving the passenger would actually cause serious damage to the driver. There were too many such instances but Nissan settled all of them out of court in order to avoid a recall and to avoid a class action suit.

[tbppjpr]

There was a shocking news today on an airbag manufacturer:
Airbag Maker Asked Technicians to Hide Test Results

Takata Corp, the Japanese auto parts maker at the centre of a global vehicle recall, ordered its technicians to destroy results of tests on some of its air bags after finding cracks in air bag inflators, the New York Times said on Friday.

The tests were carried out on the inflators - steel canisters that contain an explosive used to inflate the bags in a collision - after an accident in 2004 when an inflator in a Honda Accord exploded, ejecting metal fragments and injuring the driver, it said.

Citing two former Takata employees, the newspaper said Takata retrieved 50 airbags from scrap yards for tests not long after the accident. Instead of alerting U.S. federal safety regulators to the possible danger, Takata executives ordered the technicians to destroy the test data, the paper said.

Takata had no immediate comment on the report, which sent the company's shares down as much as 4.7 percent.

[GTO]

Here's the latest update from Shaikh Akbar:

Skoda contacted, they say that there has been an impact and our "BLACKBOX" has detected it. And the deformation of the doors is because of the impact and not because of the airbags opening!! They say it's not a manufacturing defect but a collision!!

I have been telling them that it's a manufacturing defect and even if there was a collision, they should not have opened on such an impact ! But they disagree. As is expected from these companies, they don't care once they have sold the vehicle I guess their responsibility ceases.

My suggestion to anyone going in for a Skoda, think hard before buying one.

P.S.

Forgot to mention, the officials from Skoda Auto were also saying something about the tyre pressure being lesser than required, and that also being the reason for the deployment of the airbags!! This theory I somehow don't understand at all. What does tyre pressure have to do with airbags ??

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by GTO

Here's the latest update from Shaikh Akbar:

What to believe and what not to believe. So should we label it as a customer fault or another one of Skoda's horror stories?

Did they share there data and findings behind this conclusion?